Seasons - First Impressions

[Pam]

Seasons has officially been released!  You lucky ones can tell us about your first impressions here.

[Esther1981]

In my opinion, it's awesome. I've only played with winter so far, but the snow is so fun!! The day after I set it to winter, the festival started. So far he has gotten his face painted, taken a greeting card pic, snowboarded (and fell lol) and had 3-4 snowball fights. They get better and have a skill bar over their head like it's a real skill! The snowball fights are hilarious. My sim threw one at Bessie and she fell down, I laughed real loud at that hehe. About the snowmen, I don't know how it works because he has made alot of them, and only knows how to make the classic one. I haven't yet seen an alien, but right now he's having too much fun playing in the snow to look through a telescope.

[Tiamet]

Summer has some great stuff too.  Rollerskating at the Summer Festival, fireworks, water balloon fights.  Sims can get tanned from just being outside, the pop up says they can even spontaneously combust from getting too hot outside. 

Legolas was abducted by an alien 4:37 am Monday morning.  He was only gone a few minutes, but got a 10 hour negative moodlet.  House is full, so not worried about alien babies. 



ETA: Sam teaching Gandalf to rollerskate

[Esther1981]

Hehe my male sim did too!! I guess it's not as rare as they said!!

[Enchanted81]

So far it's great with no glitches, but I've barely made it through one season. Thought I'd share some pics from the summer festival, it was raining during it so pics are a bit darker than they normally would be during the day.



That's Christopher Steel she's having a water balloon fight with, he was setup as a food merchant.



Setting off one of the many fireworks around.



Map view of the firework going off.



Playing soccer with Christopher.



Playing in a puddle on the beach earlier in the morning.

[Tiamet]

Okay, I've been playing on 3 day seasons, you choose which seasons you want and how long each season will last.  So far the only new garden plant I've found is the pumpkin, you can get it at the grocery.  I was worried about the garden in the fall and winter, but it seems that all the plants go dormant once the frost hits.  Sims can now catch "germs" and get a two day negative moodlet, but a quick trip to the hospital for a flu shot fixes them right up.

The weather and graphics are amazing.  During the summer there was a wonderful thunderstorm and hail:



Here is Cinnamon Crest during an early autumn rain:



The garden in the fall:



Autumn Fair: (yes, that's a haunted house your sim can go through)



Spooky Day morning: (notice the frost)



Later on the same day:



Sam still trying to play in the sprinklers:



Cinnamon Crest during the Great Spooky Day Blizzard of 2012:



I have to find where they hid the snowblower now:

[Ricalynn]

One of the first things I just noticed.   Central Park in SV now has non mature apple & lime trees.  I've never seen them have to grow before.  They also changed the swings to the new ones from Seasons instead of the old style. 

[JudesSims]

I noticed that even though there is a summer rain, garden plants still have to be watered because they are "wilting." That's too bad.

[Ricalynn]

Flowers in order left to right: Sulfur (common), Sweet William (rare), Blue Flax (common), Black Eyed Susan (uncommon)

Artie picking up an Azalea (uncommon) at Central Park


So far I have found 5 types of wildflowers that are listed above.  There placement in the world is completely random.  I've found them on random hillsides, in central park and off paths towards the cemetary.   There is no skill challenge in the collecting journal for wildflowers or a lesson about them. 


The weatherstone also seems to have random placement as in my new game it was at the military base.

[MarianT]

One thing to note:  The festival doesn't show up right away when you start a new game. Mine came on Monday.

Pregnant Sims don't change into costumes. However, you get a notification that they'll be wearing this "costume" for another few hours.

If you're starting a Sim with 0 cooking skill, have them throw a party -- mine got pumpkin pie and porcini risotto.

I'm loving this so far.

[Ricalynn]

Skating in the park will get 5 festival tickets.  Having a water balloon fight will get you 25 per person from your household that's participating.   You can share the tickets so it makes buying those new gnomes much easier.

[Skyla]

When you start a new game on The sims 3, is the seasons random? Or can you choose it?

[Shirin]

Oh wow, you guys are making me want to call in sick today, just so I can play when it arrives! And I have midterms, so I can't really play until those are done. (Not that it'll stop me entirely, of course!)

Also, Rica is definitely my hero! First Artie in a flowered skirt, and now Artie picking pink flowers!

[MarianT]

If you start with all 4 seasons checked, your first season will be summer. It will progress, so if you want to play around with spring or winter, uncheck the others.

[AnnDruvez]

I'm currently loving the update.

I tried to make my sim's umbrella into an Umbrella Corporation logo (from Resident Evil). Unfortunately, the one I picked had too many stripes. I wound up with a six pronged red logo instead of a four pronged one. I'll have to play with it a little more later to see whether or not the other umbrellas have a different number of sides.

Whack a gnome was interesting. I managed to hit 12000 points on my first go, fulfilling a want at almost the same moment I got it. I got lucky with the spray-on tan - no annoying orange for my sim. They're a bit expensive, though. (Was it 90 simoleans? Something like that.)

I got a moodlet from the snow cone machine. Apparently it's a brain freeze. Who knew? 

Pumpkins, if anyone wants to know, are level five to plant. And pumpkin carving is definitely one of the new skills if the horror that is my first one is any indicator! That's not a cat. That is a normal pumpkin face that someone took a meat cleaver to....

A lot of the new lights would go well in a fairy house - especially with the Faire Folk collection. There are a lot of leaves and twigs and the like. They also fit in with one of the Supernatural sets since... you know... twigs and leaves.

For the stereotypical beach houses, there are a lot of items that have shells and the like. Barring the snow cone machines, it's a bit limited on the appliances front. Still, there are a few new beds, a desk I really like, and a couple windows.

By no means, should you assume that the set is limited to these objects. They're just what I noticed right at the start. I didn't even touch on many of the buy categories and the plants in build mode.

You can check the weather online or in the newspaper. Amusingly, the weather forecast pops up and looks a lot like it actually came from a news station or site. Yep, no text-only popups here. There are actual graphics of sunny, hail, etc. Temperatures, too. When I checked it, it appears that Tuesday is going to be 100 plus in my game. Cool.

All in all, I think this expansion has a lot of potential for fun.